Muffins are to be distinguished from breads and cakes. Bread doughs, with rare exception, are subjected to intensive mixing and kneading prior to baking; the leavening agent is typically yeast and high gluten flours are preferred. Cake batters are subjected to intensive mixing, preferably by high speed electric mixers to incorporate air and to achieve a smooth texture in the batter prior to baking. Chemical leavening agents are typically employed. Also, cakes are made almost exclusively from soft wheat flours. In making muffins, however, mixing is held to an absolute minimum, a light stirring of from 10 to 20 seconds. Muffins are, of course, usually baked in individual round, straight-sided tins. Chemical leavening agents are used exclusively. According to individual preference muffins may be made from either soft wheat cake flour, hard wheat flour, or all-purpose flour which may be a blend of soft and hard wheat flours. Other materials such as rice flour, wheat bran, whole grain wheat flours, oat bran, and corn meal are popular.
A good muffin should have a texture which is not fine but uniformly robust and slightly coarse with a moist crumb. A good muffin should have a fully developed rounded top evidencing light density. However, the instructions for muffin preparation are deceptively easy, for all too frequently the muffin's texture will be characterized by tough coarseness, great tunnels and cavities throughout the body of the muffin. Frequently, the muffins will be of low volume (high density) despite a theoretically adequate amount of chemical leavening agent.
The use of prepared mixes for baking muffins has received wide usage, particularly in home baking. So-called "dry" prepared mixes for muffins are made by combining flour, shortening, sugar, leavening and other ingredients including perhaps milk solids, egg solids, flavoring and coloring to form a free-flowing mixture. To prepare muffins from these dry mixes for baking, liquid materials such as water, liquid shortening, milk and eggs are added and the combination is then gently stirred to form a wetted mixture without developing the gluten of the flour component. The resulting heterogeneous batter is then baked in individual containers to obtain the finished muffin baked good.
Muffins can vary markedly in many respects, including such physical properties as density, grain size and grain size distribution, cell wall thickness, total moisture, moisture activity, crumb softness, moisture retentivity, specific volume, center point height, etc. Muffins can also differ markedly in such organoleptic properties as texture, mouthfeel, gumminess and off-tastes. Alteration of the dry mix formulation to realize muffins differing in any one attribute generally yield concommitant changes, often detrimental, in several other attributes. Thus, dry mix formulations typically must balance increases in a desired muffin attribute against undesirable changes in others.
Traditionally, consumers preferred dry mixes which produced muffins having numerous rough, uneven, open air cells and which are generally heterogeneous in character. Such muffins typically have high specific volumes (a type of density). Muffins are typically prepared from low sugar to flour ratio dry cake mixes formulated with medium protein concentrations or "all-purpose" flour and with emulsified shortening. The skilled artisan will appreciate that while muffin mixes comprise ingredients roughly comparable to other baked goods, e.g., brownies, layer cakes, etc., that dry mixes must be carefully formulated to achieve muffin-like attributes in contrast to the attributes which characterize other baked good types.
The formulation of culinary mixes for baked goods such as muffins for the at-home preparation by conventional oven baking is highly developed. However, present consumer trends for even greater convenience have given rise to desires for culinary mixes for muffins to be prepared by microwave baking.
Batters from consumer culinary mixes designed for oven baking can be microwave baked. However, the quality of finished baked goods from microwave baking, e.g., microwave layer cakes, can suffer from numerous qualitative deficiencies. For example, when a conventional oven baking dry mix is prepared into a batter and microwave baked, the finished muffin texture can be fine-textured and spongy. Often, specific gravities are much higher. Also, pronounced variations from edge to center are observed. The center can be tough and dry while the edges are overly wet or soggy. Rather than a desirable slight peaking in the center (center to edge ratio of at least 1.50), even center point depressions can occur (&lt;1.00).
Many deficiencies in finished muffin quality prepared by microwave baking of batters from dry mixes formulated for oven baking are caused or aggravated by a fundamental difference in the baking mechanism between oven and microwave baking. In microwave baking, the pan and the solid ingredients, generally, are relatively microwave inert and are not heated while the liquids, especially the moisture and fat, are heated. In direct contrast, in oven baking, the pan and solid structure are heated relatively quickly while the moisture is heated more slowly. Also, microwave energy has a dramatically different speed of heating. Furthermore, the microwave energy itself interacts with batter ingredients to cause deleterious textural changes in the finished product. As a result, while both oven baking dry mixes and microwave baking mixes will both include flour, sugar, shortening and flavorings, the highly developed formulation technology of oven baking dry mixes provides very little guidance for formulating microwave culinary dry mixes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,161,524 discloses a dry mix for layer cakes prepared by conventional oven baking which dry mix comprises minor amounts of guar and/or locust bean gum. The compositions therein described as highly useful for the oven baking preparation of baked goods, especially layer cakes, has been found to not be useful for the microwave baking preparation of muffins.
The prior art does include compositions and methods for microwave culinary dry mixes which are taught to be useful for microwave baking (see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,419,377 entitled Cake Mix Containing a Lipophilic Emulsifier System, issued Dec. 6, 1987 to Seward et al.). Furthermore, consumer dry goods products have recently become commercially available, (see for example, Microwave Chocolate Cake Mix brand layer cake dry mix available from The Pillsbury Co.). Even better dry mixes for microwave baking of layer cakes are available under the Betty Crocker MicroRave brands (see also U.S. Ser. No. 192,579 entitled Dry Mix For Microwave Layer Cake, filed May 11, 1988 by Jackson et al.). While useful, there is a continuing need for new and improved microwave dry mixes useful in the preparation of microwave baked goods. Surprisingly, multiple end product quality attributes of muffins are dramatically improved by formulating dry mixes comprising gum systems which include the present, defined gum mixture combination.
The present invention provides improved dry mix compositions, methods for the preparation of microwave baked goods and superior finished muffin baked goods. Unexpectedly, multiple end product quality attributes are dramatically improved by formulating dry mixes comprising particular levels of psyllium in combination with particular levels of guar gum. The present dry mixes provide the advantages of increased tolerance to variations in the microwave power capacities of the various microwave ovens as well as tolerance to variations in liquids addition. The resultant finished muffins of the present invention exhibit better specific volume and dome shape than can occur due to variations in microwave power and/or liquids addition.
An additional benefit is that the present finished baked goods provide high levels of soluble fiber. A good description of the literature pertaining to the health discussion on the role of fiber is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,777,045 (issued Oct. 11, 1988 to Vanderveer et al. and entitled High Bran Snack) which is incorporated herein by reference. While in the past, interest in fiber was primarily directed towards insoluble fiber, e.g., bran, there is currently a growing awareness of the health benefits to people associated with soluble fiber consumption, especially reductions in blood serum cholesterol, i.e., antihypercholesterolemic benefits.